Project Manage Inchcape Retail Website Launch

On this project I worked closely with the Marketing Director, Franchise Directors and Operations Directors to define the strategy for the Inchcape Retail website.  The objective of the site was to act as an information and marketing channel for 80 Inchcape Retail dealerships delivering online sales enquiries and telephone response to the website offers.  The key modules required were new and used car search, finance information and special offers.  In addition the site was required to house information about each of the dealerships, such as opening hours, location maps, and press releases etc, making it easy for the car buyer to find the information they required.

I produced the business requirements and then, with the technical manager, the design document.  I was responsible for appointing and managing a design agency to deliver to the brief and for accepting handover of completed work for the internal development team to integrate with functionality.  An interesting challenge with this project was its dependency on the completion and sign off of a previous project which I was also repsonible for.  This other project involved defining and agreeing the overall look and feel of the Inchcape UK brand, and hence had an impact on the development of the Inchcape Retail website.  I also had to remain particularly sensitive to each of the manufacturers own individual brand guidelines and ensure that the site complied with their requirements.

Through the course of this project I also liaised with our advertising agency to ensure new web adverts were produced on time and in the required format.  I established process between the dealerships, the marketing team, the design agency and the contact centre to ensure timely delivery of special offers to the website on a regular basis, and to ensure communication of the offers to the contact centre.

Once the development, system and unit testing of the site were complete I organised user testing and any final bug fixing prior to launch.  The launch of the site required a detailed communication plan, and fairly tight monitoring post launch whilst the new processes bedded in.  The completed site can be viewed at:

http://www.inchcaperetail.co.uk/